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The Role Of Recruiters In Your Job Search

The role that recruiters play in a job search is a bit of a mystery to
most people. Just as you need to know whose side a real estate agent is on
when you're buying a house, it's essential that you understand whom
recruiters work for and where they fit into your job search. It's a very
common misconception that recruiters work for job seekers. In fact,
recruiters work for the employer. They are retained by the employer to
deliver a pool of qualified candidates from which the employer may – or may
not – hire. There are various payment arrangements between employers and
recruiters, but typically the recruiter will be paid a percentage of the new
hire's base salary. Reputable recruiters never require the job seeker to pay
a fee. In this age of online job searches, a recruiter's geographic location
has become unimportant. A company in New Jersey might retain a recruiter in
California to fill an open position in Texas. Recruiters find most of their
candidates these days through job boards like MedZilla, and there are a
couple of different ways this works:

They go fishing. They throw out their bait – a job posting – and wait for
candidates to respond to it. They go hunting. They pay a fee to the job
board for the right to search the job board's database of resumes for
candidates who appear to meet their criteria.

Recruiters only seek candidates for positions they've been hired to fill.
Therefore, a smart job seeker will be in contact with as many recruiters as
possible. If they don't know you exist, they can't sell you to the employer.
So how do you become known to recruiters?

You become the fish. You swim around on the job boards looking at
postings and when you see one that interests you, you respond to it. You
become the prey. You make sure that your resume is an attention-getter so
that recruiters will notice it and hunt you down.

It's critically important that you use both tactics in order to maximize
your exposure to recruiters. Either tactic may get you an interview...but
your chances are doubled if you are both fish and prey.